


Sleepwalking the Life Fantastic

by InsaneTrollLogic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-16 16:33:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1354186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneTrollLogic/pseuds/InsaneTrollLogic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is 1995 and Sam’s prayers are not yet inaudible</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleepwalking the Life Fantastic

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sweet Charity. Originally posted to LJ 5/2/2010

  
A Sweet Charity fic for Evelyn  
  
In Detroit, Sam is twelve years old, entering the fourth middle school since the start of the year. He is kneeling next to the twin bed in the motel, the carpet scratchy against his bare skin. Dean is asleep on the bed closer to the door. His left hand is splayed across the pillow. He has three broken fingers, splinted haphazardly with popsicle sticks and athletic tape. Dad won’t be home for weeks.  
  
He folds his hand in prayer like he has every day since he found out what the word meant.  _I want a normal life. I want Dean to be happy. I want dad smiling. I want **mom**_.  
  
It is 1995 and his prayers are not yet inaudible.  
  


***

  
  
The knife under his pillow is gone. He notices it before anything else. It’s been years since the silver blade wasn’t tucked in its rightful place and he almost doesn’t remember how to sleep without it.   
  
The silence assails him next. He’s not used to silence. The motels where Dad puts them have thin walls and he’s so used to the slow mumble of a television a room over and Dean’s even breathing from the next bed, that the silence is scarier than any monster he has faced.   
  
It had been the silence that woke him, nothing but the soft hum of cicadas drifting in from the open window.   
  
He knows he’s in Lawrence somehow. The town is etched into his bones, the small curl of home he’s never known.   
  
Sam pulls off the covers, swings his legs down and lets his toes curl into the thick carpet. He makes his way to the open window, letting his hand trace across the window sill in the darkness. There is no salt line. Something gnaws at Sam’s gut and he finds himself moving out the door and through the hallway.  
  
His feet pad against the carpet—silent despite his haste. The last friend he’d made at school, a pretty little redhead named Elle, had called him a ninja. The joke had left him cold. He knows other kids his age move like a car wreck, crashes and noise every time their feet hit the ground.   
  
In the kitchen downstairs, he goes straight for the cutlery, his every instinct singing his father’s lessons. His hand closes over the hilt of a carving knife just as the lights switch on.  
  
The light dazzles Sam for a moment and the only thing that stops him from throwing the knife in the direction of the source is Dean’s slightly groggy, “Sammy? What the hell are you doing?”  
  
Sam blinks at him, not quite knowing what else to say.  _You don’t see what’s wrong? Where are we? Where’s dad?_  
  
“Dude,” Dean says. “Were you sleepwalking again?”  
  
He sounds amused more than worried and the minute difference in his tone nearly tips Sam into a panic. Three weeks ago they’d been on a case where witches were sleepwalking people into oncoming traffic. Dad had been worried so of course Dean had been worried.   
  
“No,” Sam says. He doesn’t think Dean’s noticed the knife in his grip so he lets it go, spinning slowly on the spot. “What are you doing up, anyway?”  
  
“Practice,” Dean grunts. “You know that.” He tosses a duffle bag down against the wall. It’s the same bag he’s carried almost all his life but there’s something different about it. He moves past Sam to grab a granola bar from the box and an apple from the fruit bowl.   
  
“Dad got you working out again?”  
  
Dean snorts as he takes a bite out of the apple. “Dad’s thrilled I got my license. He’s off the hook for carpool duty.”  
  
“Carpool?” Sam mumbles, rubbing at his eyes. “At quarter to five? Isn’t that really early?”  
  
“You tell that to the people who run ice rink. They don’t want hockey practice at times that could get them paid.”  
  
Sam notices what’s wrong with Dean’s duffle bag now. A name stitched into the top. D. Winchester. #67. His stomach rolls.   
  
“You all right, Sammy? You look like a freaking ghost.”  
  
Sam almost laughs because ghosts he could understand. ( _Shotgun shells packed with rock salt, lines around the windows, salt and burn the remains_ ) Show him this and that’s what causes the problems.   
  
“It’s nothing,” Sam says finally. “Bad dream. Couldn’t get back to sleep.”  
  
Dean laughs and ruffles his hair. “That’s what I get for showing you and Adam that movie yesterday. No giant spiders here, dude. I promise. Go back to sleep you’ll feel better when the sun comes up. I’m supposed to meet Jimmy and Vic in five.”  
  
He grabs his bag as he tosses the empty wrapper for the granola bar into the trash can, the apple held between his teeth. The well practiced routine looks as smooth as his real brother cleaning his guns.  
  
Not knowing what else to do, he heads back up to his room ( _his room_ ).   
  
There’s a slip of paper placed neatly on his pillow. He unfolds it with shaking hands and stares at the unfamiliar scrawl.  
  
_It’s a gift. Enjoy it._  
  
He places the paper onto his nightstand, wishing he’d taken the knife. He feels strangely naked here without protection. Downstairs he hears a car starting up and he sighs as he recognizes the familiar rumbles of the Impala.   
  
The note is gone when he wakes up but the sun is drifting in from the open window and he can smell something suspiciously like pancakes from downstairs. It feels like waking from a bad dream.  
  
Golden light bathes the kitchen. Dean’s back from his practice, his hair damp with sweat, the white practice jersey looking oddly voluminous without the benefit of pads beneath it. There are two kids across from him, one fair skinned, one dark, both dressed in the a similar uniform. To his right is another boy. Sam recognizes him for a Winchester almost instantly. It’s scrawled all over the way he lounges back in his seat, eating with gusto.   
  
“Morning, Sammy,” a soft female voice greets him. He knows that voice—only he doesn’t. It’s a soft tickle of memory that teases his dreams at night. The only thing that has ever really felt like home.  
  
Mary Winchester is making pancakes. She looks just like she did in the slightly singed picture dad kept folded in the back of his journal. A few more lines, yes, but recognizable, beautiful.   
  
His mother.  
  
Two minutes later, Sam still hasn’t said a word, sitting next to the Winchester that couldn’t be a Winchester but is.  
  
“Saved some for you, Sam,” his mother says and Sam stares as she slides a plate in front of him.   
  
“Thanks,” he mumbles finally.  
  
“You slept in,” she observes. “Another five minutes and I was going to feed yours to Jimmy and Vic.”  
  
The not Winchester is staring at him, his ten-year old brow oddly serious. “You all right, Sam?” he asks.  
  
Sam blinks and starts to saw at the pancake. “Yeah.”  
  
“Don’t worry about him, Adam,” Dean says, grinning. “Found him up this morning sleepwalking or something. It’s no wonder he’s the living dead.”  
  
“Sleepwalking?” Dean’s light skinned teammate asks curiously. “I did a study on that for my biology class.”  
  
“You didn’t try and wake him up, did you, Dean?” the other teammate says. “You know that could kill him.”  
  
“Yeah, Vic,” the first one says, “That’s just not true at all.”  
  
The pancakes aren’t very good. They’re too flat and too floury. Sam’s used to breakfast on the road, diners who specialize in the short stack drenched in strawberry sauce. They did breakfast on the road more than anything else because it was cheaper and Sam’s had some of the best pancakes in the country because of it.  
  
He didn’t enjoy them as much as he does right now.   
  
Vic pushes back from his chair. “Got to get back at get showered before school. Later, Mrs. W thanks for the breakfast.”  
  
“Say hey to your mom for me,” she replies.  
  
“I’m off as well,” Jimmy says. “Thank you, Mrs. Winchester.”  
  
Dean excuses himself a minute later, pointing at Sam and Adam in turn. “I’m taking a shower and then I’ll drop you off at school. You make me late, I make you walk.”  
  


***

  
  
  
Sam’s not late but Adam is. Dean doesn’t make them walk because this may be bizarro world but Dean Winchester looks after his little brother. ( _Brothers_ ).  
  
Adam is a year and a half younger than Sam, the two of them both attending the middle school while Dean himself was at the high school. Sam hasn’t taken his eyes off him. He’s got to be some sort of monster. A shapeshifter, a changeling or a siren. He’d mumbled Christo to him six times on the car ride over so he thinks he can at least rule out demon.  
  
They wave goodbye to Dean, both standing outside the school as the Impala pulls back onto the road. Adam smiles right until the car disappears from view and then he whirls around to jab a finger into Sam’s chest. “What the hell is wrong with you?”  
  
“Wrong with me?” Sam hisses back. “Who the hell are you?!”  
  
“Adam Winchester, you idiot. Your little brother.”  
  
“Right,” Sam drawls. “Of course. Because I’ve always had a little brother.”  
  
Adam gives him a look that reminds him so much of Dean it scares him. Sam shakes his head and stalks away.   
  
Twenty steps later, Adam calls, “Your class is the other way.”  
  
Sam blushes furiously and turns around. Adam’s eyes never leave him. “Room 115,” Adam calls. “Your locker’s 242.”  
  
He has to break into his own locker, glancing sideways to make sure no one notices before he presses his ear against it waiting for the clicks before sliding it open. The locker is depressingly normal. Not much individuality except for his class schedule held against the door with a magnet. He shifts through the contents, the only thing interesting is a battered copy of The Golden Compass. Sam frowns, folding the schedule and slipping it into his pocket before heading to the first class.  
  
He sits in the back, which earns him so funny looks, and buries his head in his arms. He’s exhausted but that’s nothing new. He’s always exhausted. He doesn’t think he knows what it is to be well rested.   
  
A dark haired girl catches him by the shoulder as they’re dismissed from homeroom. “Sam,” she says. “What happened to meeting up after school yesterday?”  
  
Sam squeezes his eyes shut and takes a wild guess. “Sorry, but I—”  
  
“Ruby, he was helping me with my math homework.” A small nervous-looking guy in a fraying sweatshirt cut her off. “If you want to light something on fire, go find Andy.”  
  
“Aw, Chuck, you’re no fun at all,” Ruby says, batting her eyelashes in a failing attempt at flirtation.  
  
“And you’re going to be arrested before you hit high school.”  
  
Ruby shrugs, smirks. “They wipe your record when you hit eighteen. Why not have some fun before you have to walk the straight and narrow.” She turns around. “Later, losers.”  
  
Chuck shakes his head helplessly. “You know Sam, sometimes I think you have the worst taste in friends in the history of the world.”  
  
Sam watches the way Ruby swings her hips as he walks away, a girl playing at being older. He furrows his brow. “I’m friends with you though, aren’t I?”  
  
Chuck looks bewildered for a second and then his face splits into a smile and he knows he’d gotten this one right. “Yeah,” Chuck says, punching him in the shoulder. “Yeah, but being friends with me has got you in something like six fights in the last year so it’s still not your smartest idea.”  
  
Friend. Sam turns the word over in his mind. Outside of Dean he’s never really had a friend before. And Dean’s his brother so he doesn’t exactly count.   
  
Chuck tugs on the end of his sweat shirt almost nervously until Sam gives him a smile. “You think she’s really got pipe bombs?” Chuck says.  
  
“Fireworks,” Sam says, the lie on his lips automatically.  
  
Chuck nods like it makes sense and starts talking about comic books. Sam decides he could have done a lot worse.  
  


***

  
  
He decides to walk home after school which he doesn’t realize is a bad idea until Dean collars him before he hits the door and hisses, “Sammy, I don’t know what you were thinking but mom’s on a warpath.”  
  
“What?” Sam protests. “I just decided to walk home from school today.”  
  
“Without calling anyone? Jesus, Sam what were you thinking! You could have at least told Adam what you were planning. She gets a hold of you and she’s going to tear you a new one.”  
  
“You mean like you’re doing right now?”  
  
Dean laughs harshly. “This is nothing compared to what mom’s going to do.”  
  
It’s the first time he can remember ever being in trouble for something like this. Sure dad kept them on a short leash while hunting, but he’d also leave them alone for weeks on end and with half the high schools on different schedules than middle schools it wasn’t at all unusual for Sam to walk home on his own.  
  
“Tell you what,” Dean says. “Dad just got back from work. He’s been tinkering with one his restoration jobs in the garage. Get to him first and he’ll deflect a lot of mom’s wrath.”  
  
_Dad?_  Sam mouths but Dean’s busy pushing him back to the garage where John Winchester is under the hood of a Dodge Charger with what looked like half the engine dismantled around him.  
  
“Sammy,” he says with a smile.   
  
The smile disarms him but not so much as his appearance himself. John Winchester looks ten years younger than the last time Sam had seen him. His face less lined, the conspicuous scar on his left forearm completely gone. “Hey, dad,” Sam says quietly.  
  
He grabs a towel and wipes the grease off his hands. “Let me guess. You took the long way around and need shielding from your mother?”  
  
Sam grins sheepishly. “It was Dean’s idea.”  
  
John nods sagely. “So what was it? A girl? A highway robbery? Scamming for cigarettes?”  
  
“It was just a walk.”  
  
John shakes his head. “Son, I worry about you sometimes. You have the most boring rebellions I’ve ever seen.”  
  
Sam finds himself just a little offended. “That’s not true.”  
  
“So you’re saying you didn’t decide the Green Lantern was way cooler than Batman just because your old man and your brother preferred it the other way around.”  
  
Looking down at his feet, Sam opens his mouth and shuts it again. Because that at least was one thing that hadn’t changed. John laps and claps him on the shoulder. The gesture is easy and affectionate and it’s all Sam can do not to flinch away from the contact. The Winchesters don’t do physical signs of affection but at the same time, Sam’s ached for something like this for years.  
  
“Let’s go face your mother.”  
  


***

  
  
He’s grounded for the rest of the week but the look in dad’s eyes tells him it’s not going to last. Finally, he’s swept up in his mother’s arm, squirming a little in discomfort as she hisses, “Don’t do that to me again,” in his hair.  
  
His dad grabs him by the shoulder before he leaves and whispers, “Humor her.”  
  
Sam nods solemnly but it makes him feel better that the world isn’t perfect.  
  


***

  
  
Adam’s sitting on his bed when he goes upstairs. From what he understands he’s getting off easy, a stern warning to get notice home before he takes the long way around. He’s feeling not quite relieved until he steps into his room and finds Adam sitting on his bed, fiddling with a scrap of paper. He looks up sharply when Sam enters, holding the scrap of paper back out to him.   
  
He recognizes it. The unfamiliar handwriting that scrawled  _It’s a gift. Enjoy it_. He’d though it had disappeared that morning but no, it was Adam who found it.  
  
“What’s a gift?” Adam demands.  
  
Sam grabs for the paper but Adam tugs it back just out of reach.   
  
“What the hell is wrong with you, dude?”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“Dad and Dean might not notice it but you keep looking at me like you’ve never seen me before in your life. Sam, I want to know what’s going on.”  
  
It hits him hard that this is the person that noticed. That Dad and Dean and Mom had let their eyes slide past his alien nature but this kid, this scrawny almost a Winchester, he’s the one who puts his finger on it before anyone else.  
  
Sam sinks down heavily on the bed next to him. The bed doesn’t creak because it’s not a motel bed and he’s been trained to move without sound since before he can remember. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”  
  
Adam turns to look at him, something solemn, fierce and utterly  _Winchester_  in his gaze. “Try me,” he says.  
  
Sam raises an eyebrow, takes a deep breath and tells him everything.  
  


***

  
  
When he wakes up the next morning he’s holding a knife in his hand as Adam stands in front of him, eyes open in panic. He blinks, disoriented but his fingers don’t leave the hilt of the knife. “Sam?” Adam says. “Sam wake up!”  
  
Sam looks from the boy in front of him, back to the knife, feeling like he wants to throw up.   
  
“You’re sleepwalking dude.”  
  
_Sleep hunting more like it._  
  
“I’m sorry,” Adam says. “I didn’t want to wake you up but I was scared.”  
  
“No,” Sam says. “No.” His tongue feels thick in his mouth. “You did the right thing. I’m sorry.”  
  
“You didn’t used to do this. Is it about...”  
  
“I don’t know,” Sam cuts him off.   
  
Adam looks impossibly young in the dim light filtering in from the streetlights outside. “So you want to go back?” Adam asks, eyes wide.  
  
Sam forces his grip to loosen on the knife and he sets it down. “I want this to be real,” he whispers.  
  
“This is real.” Adam grips his shoulder, fingertips pressing almost painfully into his skin.  
  
He almost believes him.  
  


***

  
  
The sleepwalking doesn’t stop. Sam keeps waking up with weapons in his hand, keeps waking up barefooted and sweating in places he doesn’t recognize.  
  
But he’s slowly starting to recognize it. Starting to recognize this world. Starting to pick up on his inside jokes with Chuck. Starting to see the slightly dangerous allure in setting off illegal fireworks with Ruby. Starting to appreciate the cool comfort of the ice hockey rink on Dean’s game day and his mother’s imperfect pancakes.   
  
_It’s a gift. Enjoy it._  
  
There are moments though. Moments when he wakes up clutching a knife when he wonders what he’s doing here. When he wonders when this fantasy world will snap back to dirty motel rooms and three mile training runs.  
  
He wonders if he should be trying to get back to the real world. But it’s three weeks of this now, three weeks of waking up to a family and even as he scours the local library for occult books that doen’t seem to exist. He doesn’t look as hard as he should.  
  


***

  
  
  
Dad takes him into the backyard for a catch on Friday afternoon. Chides him gently for his form. Sam’s never learned how to throw a baseball before. He can throw knives and darts but a baseball is something foreign. He can’t shake the feeling of how oddly useless it is. How completely boring it is.  
  
It’s the first time he’s spent with his father that feels relaxing. That feels like fun.   
  
Mary watches them fondly from their porch. It’s the first time in Sam’s life he’s felt normal and he revels in it.  
  


***

  
  
He wakes up in Adam’s room with his hand full of shaving cream and something sticky at his face. Adam looks at him sheepishly. Sam thinks of itching powder and Nair in his shampoo and can’t bring himself to be too angry.   
  
“Couldn’t help myself.” Adam offers him a towel. “When you going to stop this sleepwalking stuff?”  
  
“Not something I’m trying to do.”  
  
“I asked Jimmy about it. He says sleepwalking’s caused by some sort of mental thing.”  
  
“You calling me crazy?”  
  
“Do you miss it?” Adam asks abruptly. “The world without me.”  
  
Sam wipes the shaving cream off his face. “No, I don’t.”  
  


***

  
  
Three nights later, he wakes up in the the living room and it doesn’t feel unfamiliar. The television is on, the slow crackle of the soft white snow crawling across the screen. There is someone sitting in the arm chair. For a second Sam thinks it’s dad but it’s not. It’s Dean’s friend Jimmy, still wearing jeans and shirt reading  _Lawrence HS Hockey_ , but there’s something off about him. His back is rigidly straight, his gray eyes staring forward, looking oddly bluer than Sam’s used to.  
  
Panicked and still a little disoriented, Sam takes a step back and bumps into Dad’s CD tower. A single case falls to the ground. CCR’s Green River. The one with Bad Moon Rising. Jimmy’s gaze swings toward him, his movements oddly robotic.  
  
Sam finds his voice. “Christo,” he stammers.   
  
Jimmy—the guy—whoever he is—does not flinch but rather tilts his head to the right and stares at Sam like he’s some kind of science project. “Samuel Winchester,” he intones. “You are a quite deal smaller then I have come to expect.”  
  
Sam blinks, reaching for the knife in his waistband that he no longer carries. “What the hell are you?” he spits. “Shifter? Ghost? Werewolf?”  
  
“I am,” Jimmy hesitates just for a second as he picks his words. “I’m a friend. I’ve looked everywhere for you... I had not expected to find you in such a state.”  
  
“What do you mean state?”  
  
“You are a child. It makes matters a good deal more complicated.”  
  
_Child_ , the word burns in Sam’s mind. He hasn’t been a child since dad taught him how to back shotgun shells full of rock salt. Hasn’t been a child since he learned what was out there and started to hunt. He hates it, but he is not a  _child_. “Who the hell do you think you are?” Sam spits.  
  
“Castiel.” There is frustration etched into his every word. “You don’t know me?”  
  
“Yeah, well the guy you’re wearing is called Jimmy and he’s my brother’s best friend.”  
  
“I assure you, Sam. I’m not a demon. I’ve been looking for you and this is the only means I have for communication. You’ve been... misplaced.”  
  
“You’re from the other place,” Sam realizes with a start. “The one where I came from.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Are you here to take me back?”  
  
“If I could I would but I’m afraid it is currently beyond my powers. It’s difficult enough to maintain contact with this world whose very make-up rejects my being. I’m most interested that it does not reject yours.”  
  
Something in Sam’s gut clenches. He thinks of Adam, his mother, Dean smiling as he heads to practice. “You mean it’s real? It’s not some monster messing with me?”  
  
“The world is quite real,” Castiel confirms. “Bu I can’t discern why someone would go through the trouble to take you here.”  
  
“Maybe someone likes me. It could be a good thing, right?” He hates how deperate he is to believe it. “It could be a gift.”  
  
Castiel opens his mouth to reply but no words pass his lips. His entire body hitches and the straightness fades from his spine, his eyes dulling to their usual gray. Jimmy gasps for breath, collapsing sideways on the armchair.  
  
“Jimmy?” Sam tries.  
  
“Sam?” Jimmy’s voice is sandpaper rough, like he’s speaking through glass. “How the hell did I get here?”  
  


***

  
  
He dreams he’s falling the next night. Dreams he’s soaring through the sky on the wings of an angel. When he wakes up, he’s standing on the edge of the rooftop, an open window at his back as the sky swallows the world in front of him.  
  
He starts and loses his footing, slipping on the edge. He’s sure for a moment that he’s going to fall but someone’s hand closes around his own. And then Dean’s hauling him back from the edge, pulling him in through the open window and depositing him unceremoniously on the floor.  
  
“What the hell, Sammy?”  
  
It’s Dean’s room. Dean’s room plastered with vintages posters of classic rock bands. His practice jersey’s tossed casually over the desk chair and text books span the floor. This is Dean’s room. The though still gives Sam chills. This is who Dean could have been.   
  
How Dean should have been.  
  
“Are you still sleepwalking?”  
  
Sam averts his eyes.  
  
“Jesus, Sammy. It was cute and all for the first few nights but if you start climbing out of windows, that’s some scary shit. You’ve got to do something about this.”  
  
“Like lock the windows?”  
  
“Like get some help, dude.” Dean steers him to the bed and sits him down before drawing himself up like dad always did before one of his hunting lectures. “Jimmy told me this sort of thing happens when you’ve got some issues. So I’m going to tell mom about this and we’re going to get you some freaking help.”  
  
“Dean?”  
  
Dean sat down heavily next to him, throwing an arm over his shoulder. “I know you have issues, little brother, but you need to figure them out and stop climbing out of windows while you’re sleeping.”   
  


***

  
  
Chuck’s got his notebook out again in the cafeteria. He’s forever scribbling something down in the battered spiral and over the past few weeks, Sam’s become accustomed to the sloppy hand, spiraling around rough sketches. He’s been writing a comic book a sprawling epic about a fight between heaven and hell that Sam suspects will be won by humans. It’s spanned eleven spiral notebooks so far and doesn’t seem to be stopping. The faces or the characters are crude but Sam can see the vague resemblance to people he knows in the characters. The sketches of the human brothers are definitely Chuck and Sam while the Devil bears a certain resemblance to Ruby. One of the love interests is clearly Jo, a blonde from their math class and the most prominent trio of angels look suspiciously like Dean, Jimmy and Vic.  
  
Ruby snatches the notebook out of Chuck’s hands the instant she sees it, leaning back in her chair as she flips through the new pages. Chuck protests but Ruby raises a hand. “Give me a second all right? I love this shit. Highlight of my day.”  
  
“You do realize he cast you as the Devil, right?” Andy says from across the table.  
  
Ruby gives them all a wide grin. “Totally the best part out there. You’re just jealous because you’re one of my bitch demons.”  
  
“Ouch,” Andy says. “We’re not friends anymore.”  
  
“You think you could kill him off for me next issue, Chuck?”   
  
Chuck blushes. “I still can’t believe you like this stuff.”  
  
It’s moments like this when Sam realizes why he’s friends with Ruby. She smiles again, slow and easy, her eyes softening with obvious fondness. “Like it? I wish my life was like this.”  
  
“You wish you were the Devil?” Andy says.  
  
“The Devil has more fun than anyone else.” Ruby waves a hand. “Back me up here Sam, wouldn’t you kill to be part of stuff like this?”  
  
Sam blinks, an odd sense of calm settling over. “No,” he says and his voice sounds like it’s coming from far, far away. “I’ll take this world every time.”  
  


***

  
  
He wakes up in bed for the first time in weeks. He shuts his eyes and takes a deep slow breath, intent on reveling in the rare experience before he realizes there’s a bed spring digging into his spine.  
  
He shoots upright.  
  
Dean is snoring on the bed next to him. His hand is splayed out against the pillow, the bruising on his fingers peaking through the white of the bandages. There is a knife under his pillow.  
  
His feet hit the carpet, the stiff, scratch rug so different from the softness of his room, he wants to cry.  
  
He thinks of Castiel in Jimmy’s body, voice grave as he proclaims, It’s quite real.  
  
It was real and now he is here again, just like nothing had ever happened.  
  
Sam staggers to the bathroom. He runs the water as cold as it will go and splashing in on his face. It had been far to real to be a dream.  
  
His mother is sitting on the toilet seat when he turns around. His heart lurches up to his throat. “Mom?” he says.  
  
“Oh, sweetie,” his mother coos. “No, your mother is dead. She’s been dead since you were a baby, remember? Burned up all over your crib if I’m not mistaken.”  
  
Panicked now, Sam turns to run out the door but the door swings shut abruptly before he can get there.   
  
“No running now. I want to talk. Did you enjoy the gift I sent you?”  
  
“I didn’t get any gifts,” Sam says, pounding on the closed door. “DEAN!”  
  
“Your brother won’t wake up until I will him to,” the thing wearing his mother’s face says. “And you know the gift I speak of. I sent you to such a lovely home.”  
  
“It wasn’t real.”  
  
“It was quite real. You got confirmation from Castiel about as much. In a few years, his word will be enough to prove it to you.”  
  
“But not now.”  
  
“No, I suppose not. I’m not trying to trick you and I’m not going to lie to you. I know you prefer that world to this.”  
  
“How could you possible know that?” He tries to gage the possible weapons in the room. There’s holy water in the fridge if he can get to it but the more pressing need is something silver.  
  
“Because I was the one who sent you there,” the thing sighs dramatically. “Let’s call it the free trial version. I’m here to give you an option to purchase. A world without monsters. Where your mother lives and your father is happy. Where you and your _brothers_  grow up in a stable home. Where you have friends. And it’s real and it’s good and you can live there for the rest of your life.”  
  
“And what about Dean?” Sam chokes. “My Dean.”  
  
“I can wipe you from his memory if you wish it. Same with your dad. They will never know you left because they will never know you were here.”  
  
Sam falters.  
  
“You’ll still have Dean,” the thing says. “A better adjusted Dean who’s just as loyal but twice as happy. Dean with the world off of his shoulders. Isn’t that what you wanted for him.”  
  
Sam’s lips are chapped. His tongue is heavy in his mouth. He thinks of Dad smile as he wipes the grease off his hands, Dean back from practice eating breakfast with his friends. Thinks of Chuck scribbling in his notebook and Ruby’s playful smirk. Thinks of his mother in the kitchen and not on the ceiling. Thinks of Adam, the Winchester who should have existed but doesn’t. Not here.   
  
He licks his lips. “What do I have to do?”  
  
“I need you to let me in, Sam. You can let me in and I can push you out. Back to that world. The one with your family intact. The one without monsters. The world where the Winchesters aren’t cursed.”  
  


***

  
  
Time moves differently for angels.  
  
In 2011, Sam is twenty-eight years old, shaking under a sky that matches the color of the ruby red blood on his hands. He’s hauled to his feet by his brother and a half-fallen angel, the three of them leaning against one another for support as they survey the destruction.   
  
Sam spits blood onto the ground; looks up to heaven, down to hell and straight ahead at the city that used to be Detroit. “No,” he says, raising his voice. “No, you bastard! The answer’s always going to be no!”  
  
It is sunny in Detroit in 1995. There is still a city, not just a ravaged wasteland with only three survivors. A boy sits in a stuffy motel bathroom, sweat dripping down his temples. His mother reaches out to touch his cheek.  
  
It is 1995 and Sam is twelve years old, longing for something normal when the Devil dangles a perfect life in front of his eyes.  
  
Sam says yes.


End file.
